Letter L – Glossary of English Slang

– Glossary of English Slang –

Ll

(to be) Laid-Back – This is an adjectival slang term that means: (to be) “Relaxed”. The phrase comes from the fact that many people, when they are relaxing are lounging on a chair/coach/bed with their feet up and they are literally “laying” back (rather than sitting up straight.) Therefore if a person is laid-back, then s/he is relaxed/calm/un-stressed/un-concerned.

Left-Overs – This idiomatic phrasal noun is also a slang term for the food that is not eaten and then saved for the next day… “We’ve got too much food in the refrigerator to go out to a restaurant tonight. We’re going to have left-overs for at least the next three days.”

(a)Life-Line – This is a word which can be used to refer to anything which “saves one’s life”. It is a slang term, however, because it is used to describe anything which keeps one out of trouble, saves one from a difficult or uncomfortable situation, or somehow provides help that is greatly appreciated… “My friend Miroslav was a real life-line for me when I was living in the Czech Republic and found myself alone, with nowhere to go, and not able to speak or understand the language. Without him, I don’t know how I would have survived!”

(the) Lime-Light – This is a term which is used to refer to the world of show-business. If an actor, actress, singer, musician, politician, reality star, attention-whore, is being talked about, is on lots of talk-shows, making lots of movies or… whatever – we can say they are in the lime-light. The term comes from the fact that in past, there were lights that were used in Theater and dance-halls that used lime calcium as an ingredient to create very bright light. These lights were called lime lights – thus the term.

(a) Loop-Hole – This is an slang term which is used to talk about rules, regulations and laws. Specifically, when there is some part of the rule, regulation, or law, which legally allows one to “break” that rule or at least “work around” it in a way that the person or group doing-so can not get into any trouble for it… “Even though there was a large marijuana growing operation found in the apartment, the charges were dropped because the defendant’s lawyer found a loop-hole in the law, which made it so the police’s probable cause for entering the apartment was un-lawful.”

(to be) Lost – Literally, this adjective is used to say that does not know where one is in location to his or her surroundings. However, as a slang term, this word is used as an adjective to say that one is confused and does not understand some bit of information that has been presented to him or her. This can be from being overloaded with information, from the information not making any logical sense, or it can be because the person is not in an optimal state of mental or physical health. (These are not the only reasons, but are very common ones.)… “There was so much information presented over such a short period of time, that by the end of the first 30 minutes, I was completely lost.”